


Like A Sweet Melody

by nagi_schwarz



Category: NCIS
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:13:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13626408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: AU after the end of Season 3. Gibbs goes down to Mexico and stays there. Tony follows. Fishing and a long game ensue, and the end is family and a sweet melody.





	Like A Sweet Melody

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the fabulous SherlockianSyndromes for doing the beta on this.
> 
> Written for the What If? AU Challenge on LJ and DW.

_In a pine forest cooler than the rest of the island_  
_Lives a young fisherman with eyes like the sea_  
_He built his own boat and made his own cabin_  
_But he’s broken the hearts of the likes of me_

Tony had never been much for telling a story like it was: he told a story how it should be. So he didn’t tell them that when he finally tracked down Leroy Jethro Gibbs, who had disappeared pretty thoroughly for a guy who’d lost fifteen years’ worth of memory, he was living on a shack on a beach in Mexico. For the first little while he was living with his old mentor, Mike Franks, but he moved out as soon as he had his own cabin built.

And then it was business as always, building a boat.

Tony could have stayed with NCIS, taken over the MCRT.

But there was no point in staying with NCIS when Gibbs was gone.

“So you spent your three months off between jobs partying it up down in Mexico with endless waves of hot babes and coeds,” McGee said when he and Tony were having dinner together back in DC at their old haunt, sharing bowls of Chinese and cold beer.

“Pretty much,” Tony said.

Years later, when little Caitlin DiNozzo asked why they lived out in the middle of nowhere, in a pine forest on a little island, Tony would tell her that it was so they could live by the sea.

Caitlin didn’t mind it so much, because their fishing boat was named after her, The Kate.

 

 _Now you must understand, he made me a promise_  
_There were secrets we shared, we planted a tree_  
_We lived in a cabin, I fished along side of him_  
_I fell under the spell of his sorcery_

Anyone who knew Gibbs wouldn’t buy poetry or romance for a second.

But this was Tony’s story, and he’d tell it how he liked. He and Gibbs - the only people who mattered in the story (beside Caitlin) knew how it really went.

Tony looked every part the casual tourist, barefoot, sandals in hand as he strolled along the edge of the water, squinting in the early morning light. The blue of the ocean was deep, jewel-bright, glittering under the sun.

Gibbs spotted him and recognized him immediately.

“You’re from NCIS.”

“I am.”

“You’re on my team.”

“I was.”

“Was?”

“Like you, I’m retired,” Tony said.

“Kinda young for retirement.”

Tony shrugged, smiled, casual and calm. He kept one hand tucked in his pocket, knew he was tanned and golden and perfectly put together. Gibbs, in contrast, was wearing ragged denim cutoff shorts, a t-shirt, and was sunburned around the edges, hair damp and spiky with sweat.

“I’m not gonna be your boss again,” Gibbs said.

Tony shrugged again. “Not asking you to.”

“Tony, is it?”

He nodded, even though it was so strange to hear Gibbs call him by his first name.

“Tony, I woke up in a hospital after I got blown up by a terrorist and found out I lost fifteen years’ worth of memory. As far as I know, I just got the news my wife and child died, and it’s the Gulf War.”

Tony nodded again.

“I don’t remember you.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because you woke up in the hospital after you got blown up by a terrorist and found out you lost fifteen years’ worth of memory. Because I stood by in the hospital and found out my boss forgot me. A boss I didn’t even know had a wife and child.”

Gibbs looked at him. “Say what you need to say, and go.”

“You had a wife and child. I had a boss. Your wife and child are gone. My boss is gone. You’re here. So am I.”

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. “Say what you _mean.”_

Tony stepped in, kissed him briefly on the mouth.

When he stepped back, Gibbs’s eyes were wide.

“I can’t - I don’t -”

“Not asking you to do anything for me,” Tony said. “Just - let me be here.”

Gibbs pressed a hand to his mouth, stared at him.

Tony remained still under the scrutiny.

Finally Gibbs stepped back, turned away.

All the air rushed out of Tony’s lungs.

Gibbs scooped up a sanding block and some sandpaper, thrust it at Tony. He pointed to the overturned hull of the newest construction project boat.

“Make yourself useful. Sand with the grain.”

Tony smiled and stepped up.

Over the months that followed, Tony worked alongside Gibbs, helping with his boat and repairs around the cabin, fishing in Mike Franks’s boat once in a while, sometimes walking up to the cantina to bring back cold beers.

Gibbs slept in his bed, and Tony slept in a hammock on the porch, and he never kissed Gibbs again, never asked for more than Gibbs could offer, and they worked. Built a boat. Cleaned up the cabin.

Tony wasn’t sure how much of Gibbs’s memories came back till the boat was finished and they christened it with champagne across the prow.

Gibbs called it The Kate.

Anyone who _actually_ knew Gibbs understood just how deep his romance ran.

 

 _When he cast me adrift at the end of the summer_  
_It was not for another but his own privacy_  
_I fell apart like a rose, but the scent of my longing_  
_Remains and it weeps like an old willow tree_

No one would believe that the breakup, when it came, happened poetically. But they let Tony tell it as poetically as he wanted, because he hadn’t wanted to believe it either.

“You deserve better than this.”

Gibbs and Tony were out on the waves in the crisp autumn dawn, looking to make the catch of the day. Tony now knew a thousand different ways to cook a fish.

His favorite was still over an open fire, to be eaten with his knife and accompanied by a nice cold beer.

“Better than this fishing rod? You bet I do. I’m thinking of upgrading to a Shakespeare,” Tony said.

“You deserve better than me,” Gibbs said finally.

Tony cast him a sidelong glance. He was never one to make things easy, not when it counted. “What person in the world deserves better than sun, sandy beaches, early retirement, and fishing all day?”

“You’re young, intelligent, handsome. Charming.”

Tony arched an eyebrow, because Gibbs had never seemed impressed or amused by his flirting, not once.

“You could have a nice job, and a nice girl, with a nice family.”

“Had a nice job. Don’t want a nice girl. Thought I had a nice family - right here.” Tony straightened up, fought to keep his expression calm.

Gibbs shook his head. “You’ve been here a season. Times have changed. It’s time for you to move on.”

“The only person who decides what I deserve in a relationship is me,” Tony said.

“But the person who decides who stays in my home is me,” Gibbs said.

Tony’s world went still for a moment.

There was a tug on the end of his line.

He couldn’t help but ask. “Is there someone else? Besides Shannon and Kelly, I mean.”

Gibbs looked away.

Tony realized there had never been anyone besides Shannon and Kelly, no matter how many feisty redheads Gibbs dated, married, and divorced.

They said nothing, they caught food for the day, and returned to shore.

Tony was packed and headed back to town by midday, on a plane back Stateside by nightfall.

“So, what’s next for Tony DiNozzo?” McGee asked. “Will you take Fornell up on his offer to join the FBI?”

“Maybe.”

But the answer was no.

Tony did buy a fishing boat, though. And he sailed it down to Mexico. He set up his own little operation: beachfront cabin, hammock, and catching enough fish every day to run a little stall at the local market.

The look on Gibbs’s face the first time he saw Tony at his stall was priceless.

“Daddy,” little Caitlin DiNozzo would ask, years later, “what did you do besides catch fish and sell fish?”

Gibbs’s answer would be, “What else was there worth doing?”

“Well,” Caitlin would say, “setting the fish free.”

 

 _At night when it’s still, with a yellow moon rising_  
_When his candle is snuffed and he’s deep in a dream_  
_I move like a cat, and crawl into his window_  
_And lie down beside him in a golden moonbeam_  

No one would ever describe Tony as subtle, but when it came to the things that mattered, he could play a long game.

He didn’t have to be subtle to play the long game, though. He moved into a cabin up the beach from where Gibbs and Franks lived. He brought Franks cold beers from the cantina once a week. He fished first thing in the morning, at the same time as Gibbs. He went running after he went fishing, right past Franks and Gibbs’s cabins. On his one day off a week, he played his music loud while he worked on repairs for his cabin and his boat. And sometimes he went swimming. He was pretty good at timing things just right so when he came out of the water, shirtless and glistening in the sun, was when Gibbs was walking by after his afternoon trip to the market.

Tony was never with any women, though. He’d talk and smile if they talked and smiled at him at the market, in the cantina. But they never got to sail on his boat, and they never got to come back to his cabin.

When the seasons turned to autumn, Tony ceased swimming in the colder water, but he was still everywhere Gibbs was, just over his shoulder, just out of the corner of his eye, just looking away from him, just out of reach. Tony could see the way Gibbs was hyperaware of him, constantly checking out of the corner of his eye to see if Tony was there, what he was doing.

Tony played a good long game, though.

He kept staying in Gibbs’s orbit until the man was used to him, until the man knew he was there but wasn’t bothered by him. Until the man expected him to be there. Tony hit the water for his morning swim, Tony arrived at the market with the catch of the day, Tony strode into the cantina for a cold beer, and Gibbs knew he was there. Gibbs searched for him, found him without even realizing it, and relaxed, because Tony was there.

Tony let that happen for a little while, and then winter set in, and he retreated indoors. Stayed there. He’d finally saved up enough for some creature comforts at his cabin: TV and DVD player for his epic movie collection, an internet connection, a fishbowl with a couple of fish named Abby and Kate, and a piano.

Not a baby grand, like the one he’d had in his apartment, just an old wooden upright that he polished carefully.

Tony went fishing in the pre-dawn darkness, he sold the catch of the day in the faint dawn glow, and he was back home before the sun had fully risen. He watched his old favorite movies, he fed his fish, he wrote letters to Abby and Ducky and McGee, and he played the piano.

And he waited.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs could play a pretty good long game, but Tony had the advantage in this, because he’d played this game before. He knew Gibbs’s memory had returned in places, but chances were Gibbs’s memories of Tony’s five years on his MCRT would never be as complete as Tony’s.

After five days, there was a knock at Tony’s door.

He rose, crossed the cabin, pulled open the door. Gibbs stood there, shoulders hunched against the cold, hands in his jacket pockets.

“Where have you been?” Gibbs asked.

Tony’s instinct was to ask, _Did you miss me?_ Instead he said, “I’ve been around.”

“You haven’t been.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “My continued paychecks say I have.”

Gibbs peered past Tony, took everything in with his piercing gaze. “You play the piano?”

“Since I was a child.”

Gibbs squinted at him. “You never said.”

“You never asked.”

Gibbs kept on looking at him.

Tony let him look.

Finally Gibbs said, “Why are you still here?”

Tony countered with, “Why are you still building boats and naming them after dead women?”

Gibbs pressed his lips into a thin line.

Tony smiled. “I guess you answered your own question.” He held the door open wider, stepped back. “Would you like to come in?”

Gibbs shook his head, retreated a step.

Tony shrugged, smiled again, and shut the door in his face.

Tony kept playing the long game. Every couple of days, Gibbs would come knock on his door and make sure he was still there, still alive. Every day, Tony lured him a little further into the cabin.

_A glass of water? A mug of hot coffee to stave off the cold? Wait a minute - the coffee pot’s almost done. No sense in standing on the doorstep.  In five minutes this soup will be done, if you’d like a bowl. It’ll take the edge off the chill._

Gibbs came into the cabin a little further, and he stayed a little longer.

_Want to see the latest email from Abby? It has pictures of everyone. I learned a new song on the piano. Want to take a listen?_

Tony sat down at the piano, and Gibbs sat down beside him, and Tony played and sang.

 _In a pine forest cooler than the rest of the island_ _  
_ _Lives an old fisherman with eyes like the sea._

“I don’t think that’s how that song goes,” Gibbs said.

But Tony smiled and kept on playing, kept on singing.

Tony played a very, very long game, and when he finally did lay down beside Gibbs, it was in a golden moonbeam.

“Now that’s how the song goes,” Gibbs whispered, and kissed him before falling asleep.

 

 _The smell of his skin is just like the summer_  
_When our love was as fresh as the grass in the fields_  
_And ever so softly I kiss his eyelids_  
_Before slipping away, my secret concealed_

One day little Caitlin DiNozzo would ask, “How did it happen? How did you find me?”

Tony, ever the poet, would kiss her eyelids and say, “The sea brought you to us.”

Gibbs would arch an eyebrow at Tony from behind Caitlin, but he would say nothing. Let Caitlin enjoy the mystery of how she joined her family.

Tony could remember the day they found her. She, like they, had been floating on the water in a lovingly handcrafted wooden vessel. Tony and Gibbs had been lost in each other, hands on skin, mouths on mouths, bodies rocking with the rhythm of the sea. Tony had been close to completion, face buried against Gibbs’s throat as they rocked and rocked and rocked.

Tony was delirious with pleasure, with the scent of sunlight and Gibbs’s skin, with kisses and caresses.

It all came screeching to a halt when they heard the baby cry.

They scrambled apart, searching the water around them as they threw on their clothes, horrified that some nice holiday-making family had stumbled across them.

And then they saw, floating on the water, a little wooden coracle with a baby in it. A crying baby, kicking and fussing beneath her pink blankets.

They scooped her up, coracle and all, and Tony held her as Gibbs guided their boat to shore.

No one knew who she was. No one claimed her. Police examined the coracle, blanket, and clothes a dozen times over. It took a few months, but eventually Tony adopted her.

“What are you going to name her?” Franks asked.

“We’ve been calling her Caitlin,” Tony said.

Franks glanced at Gibbs.

Gibbs nodded.

Little Caitlin grew like a weed. Every time she laughed or cried or said a new word, every time she crawled or walked or reached a new milestone, Tony saw pain and love in Gibbs’s eyes.

As Caitlin got older, grew taller, her hair came in dark, and her eyes turned bright blue, and like both of her fathers, she loved being on the sea. The pain in Gibbs’s eyes faded, but the love remained.

 

 _Though I’m in it alone, I’m still in it in love_  
_And love can be lonely like a sweet melody_  
_But maybe he feels me like a whisper inside him_  
_Like an angel beside him, keeping him company_

“Why do we fish, Daddy?” Caitlin asked.

She stood beside Tony on the deck of the _Kate,_ feeling the seaspray on her face and smiling in the sun.

“To eat,” he said.

“Why do we build boats?” She’d been helping fetch and carry tools since she could walk, knew her way around wood and steam boxes and sanding blocks and hand-planers the way Tony had once known his way around suits, expensive shoes, and fine restaurants.

“To remember the people we love,” Tony said. “And so that no matter where we go, we’re home.”

“Why do boats have to be named after girls?” Caitlin asked.

Tony shrugged. “I don’t know. That was always your papa’s rule. I don’t think it’s a fixed rule, though. Big naval battlecruisers can be named after boys. Like presidents.”

“So when I build my first boat, I could name it after you or Papa?”

“If you want. Can’t have a boat with no name, though.”

So years later, sixteen-year-old Caitlin DiNozzo broke a bottle of champagne across the prow of the _Anthony Jethro._

Tony and Gibbs stood beside her, Tony cheering with abandon, Gibbs smiling.

Years after that, Caitlin and Tony DiNozzo stood on the shore and watched as the _Kate_ floated out to sea, carrying a precious burden that would be sent heavenward with flames.

“Will it be home?” Caitlin asked, her hand curled around Tony’s wrist. “Without him?”

“Yes,” Tony said.

It would be. It would also be lonely.

But it would be all right, because after the last of the flames faded, Caitlin would sail away with her own young fisherman, and in every whisper of seaspray on Tony’s skin, Gibbs would be beside him.

Like a sweet melody.

**Author's Note:**

> This story happened because I've always wanted to write a story to Carly Simon's The Fisherman's Song, which hit me right between the eyes when I first heard it, and I've never been able to shake it since.


End file.
